How to Organize Transitional or High Traffic Spaces
Transitions, or times of change and/or movement, can make it incredibly difficult to keep your home organized. These transitions, changes, and movements in your home can be both physical and in your life circumstances.
In this two part series, I am going to share with you two aspects of transition. They are very different, but they illustrate how much transition impacts home management.
In this post we will look at how physical transitions in a space impact home organization. In the follow up post I will write about how life transitions, such as births, deaths, divorces, etc. impact home organization.
There are two physical spaces in the home where transitioning naturally occur with incredible frequency - the entry way (or mud room) and the pantry (or food storage). In some homes the linen closet makes this list, and you may have other spaces of transition in your home. For this post, I will focus on the entry way and pantry, but the same principles can apply in other high transition spaces. Let's talk about the issues pantries and entry ways face and then explore solutions.
Let's start by analyzing a recent client’s pantry. She wanted what most people want from a pantry - accessibility to her food with an esthetically pleasing presentation. She had tried decanting her food into jars. She found what many people find - it can be incredibly hard to keep up with. But she wanted something pretty.
The solution - limit the transitions in the pantry. This video below explains how we limited these transitions:
You see, we planned for the transitions, and created zones within the pantry that will not be as prone to disorder. She really only has to maintain a few areas now. By doing this we planned for those transitions. She now has basically three shelves to maintain. The others will be static and not as prone to transitions.
Now, let's analyze her entry way. As I interviewed her about the space, I realized what an incredibly active family they are. She showed me all their picnic, tennis, and outdoor sports gear, as well as their winter gear, I realized we needed a plan for the summer to winter transition. Essentially, we created a space for her to transition her closet between summer and winter with intention. You can see how we did this below:
In both the pantry and the entry way, we planned for the transitions that would happen and made them part of the functioning of the space. Here are some general guidelines for responding to transitional spaces that you might find helpful as you organize:
Identify where transition happens in your home. Start with the pantry and the entry way, but consider other spaces have movement too.
Put items that will move or change a lot in one zone of a one space. This will allow you to focus in on maintaining this one zone in the space, while the other zone will be less chaotic and easier to maintain.
Consider factors that will create change, like seasons, and explicitly plan for that change. Rotation is one way to respond, but you may find another way to respond to that change. Get creative!
Remember that transition can be a bit sneaky, so planning for it can be frustrating. Just do what you can to roll with the frustration.
In the next post we will look at how life transitions impact home management. Consider for a moment how your space changes with the addition of a new baby. For me, I had to give up books in order to accommodate my son's new toys. Conversely, consider a transition wherein someone from your home leaves - whether it be a child leaving for college, a divorce, or even a death. The space is used in a new way.
Transitions can often be and feel frustrating. But if we can embrace them creatively and openly, then we can find new, even radical possibilities. And if we embrace them thoughtfully in our home management, then we can reduce the frustration factor they can cause us.
